Table of Contents
Introduction
The Silent Way Method is an innovative approach to language teaching that emphasizes student discovery, creativity, and problem-solving.
This article will provide a detailed exploration of the Silent Way Method, including its theoretical foundations, classroom implementation, and the teacher’s role. Additionally, it will compare the Silent Way with other contemporary language teaching methods to highlight its unique aspects and effectiveness in fostering a deep understanding of the language.
Background
The Chomskyan criticism of the theories upon which the audiolingual method was founded led to an interest not only in affective factors but also in cognitive factors. While Community Language Learning, drawing from Carl Rogers’ philosophy, focused on the importance of affect, new methods were developed in the 70s to highlight the cognitive domain in language learning.
The Silent Way is one of these innovative methods. In fact, Caleb Gattegno, the founder of the Silent Way, devoted his thinking to the importance of a problem-solving approach in education.
He contends that the method is constructivist and leads learners to develop their own conceptual models of all aspects of the language. The best way of achieving this is to help students be experimental learners.
The Main Principles of The Silent Way Method
The Silent Way is characterized by its focus on discovery, creativity, problem-solving, and the use of accompanying materials. Richards and Rodgers (1986:99) summarized the method into three major features:
- Learning is facilitated if the learner discovers or creates. The Silent Way belongs to the tradition of teaching that favors a hypothetical mode of teaching (as opposed to an expository mode of teaching) in which the teacher and the learner work cooperatively to reach the desired educational goals. (cf. Bruner 1966.) The learner is not a bench-bound listener but an active contributor to the learning process.
- Learning is facilitated by accompanying (mediating) physical objects. The Silent Way uses colorful charts and rods (Cuisenaire rods) which are of varying lengths. They are used to introduce vocabulary (colors, numbers, adjectives, verbs) and syntax (tense, comparatives, plurals, word order, etc.).
- Learning is facilitated by problem-solving involving the material to be learned. This can be summarized by Benjamin Franklin’s words: “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn.” A good Silent Way learner is a good problem solver. The teacher’s role resides only in giving minimal repetitions and corrections, remaining silent most of the time, leaving the learner struggling to solve problems about the language and grasp its mechanism.
Examples of Specific Exercises or Tasks
- Pronunciation Practice: Students use colored rods to represent different phonemes. The teacher points to a color on the chart, and students select the corresponding rod and pronounce the sound.
- Sentence Construction: Students use rods to build sentences based on a visual prompt or a written sentence provided by the teacher. They then practice saying the sentence aloud, ensuring correct syntax and pronunciation.
- Grammar Drills: Using the rods, students practice forming different tenses or grammatical structures. For example, they might switch the order of rods to change a sentence from present to past tense.
Teacher’s Role
Specific Actions and Behaviors of the Teacher
- Facilitator: The teacher acts as a guide rather than a lecturer. They set up the activities and provide the materials but do not dominate the classroom with speech.
- Observer: The teacher closely observes students’ interactions with the materials and each other. They take note of students’ progress and areas where they might need more guidance.
- Non-Verbal Communication: The teacher uses gestures, facial expressions, and body language to communicate. They might point to a rod, use hand signals to indicate approval or disapproval, or rearrange materials to guide students.
Disadvantages of the Silent Way
The Silent Way is often criticized for being a harsh method. The learner works in isolation, and communication is lacking in a Silent Way classroom.
With minimal help from the teacher, the Silent Way method may put the learning process itself at stake.
The materials (the rods and the charts) used in this method will certainly fail to introduce all aspects of language. Other materials will have to be introduced.
Advantages of the Silent Way
Learning through problem-solving looks attractive, especially because it fosters:
- Creativity
- Discovery
- Increase in intelligent potency
- Long-term memory
The indirect role of the teacher highlights the importance and centrality of the learner, who is responsible for figuring out and testing hypotheses about how language works. In other words, teaching is subordinated to learning.
Comparison with Other Methods
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) vs. Silent Way
- Focus: CLT emphasizes real-life communication and fluency, while the Silent Way focuses on the internalization of language structures through problem-solving and discovery.
- Teacher’s Role: In CLT, teachers often facilitate interactive activities and conversations, providing plenty of verbal input. In contrast, Silent Way teachers remain mostly silent, guiding learning through non-verbal means.
- Student Interaction: CLT encourages spontaneous use of language in social contexts, whereas Silent Way students interact more with materials and engage in structured problem-solving tasks.
Task-Based Learning (TBL) vs. Silent Way
- Focus: TBL is centered around completing meaningful tasks that simulate real-life language use. The Silent Way, however, emphasizes learning through manipulating materials and solving linguistic problems.
- Teacher’s Role: In TBL, teachers design tasks and provide support as needed, often engaging in direct communication with students. Silent Way teachers minimize verbal interaction, letting students discover language rules independently.
- Materials and Activities: TBL uses a variety of real-world tasks to practice language skills, while the Silent Way relies heavily on specific materials like rods and charts to facilitate learning through discovery.
References
- Bruner, J. (1966). Toward a Theory of Instruction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Brown, H. Douglas (1987). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
- Richards, Jack C., and Theodore S. Rodgers (1986). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching: A Description and Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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